


chasing down my lane

by oryx



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Pre-Canon, the thief/princess content the show never gave us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 00:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17633066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: Luka's pursuit of an ambitious windfall is thwarted by someone unexpected.





	chasing down my lane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainbowlive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowlive/gifts).



  
It starts with a grainy, static-ridden news broadcast.  
   
Her model of telewatch is ancient – she scavenged it out of a box behind a tenement complex, the screen cracked and the transmitter fried. She had Nils fix it up as best he could, but it’s a temperamental thing, only seeming to work when it pleases. Today, though, she’s lucky enough to grab a signal, as she sits out on the grimy back steps of the bar and waits for Cain. Lucky enough to catch a story about a rather exciting event for all the high-rollers in this city.  
   
The royal family of the planet Famille are coming for a visit, the newsperson says. They wish to donate some fine works of art to the metropolitan museum. Antique hand mirrors and combs, traditional Famillian goddess sculptures, ornate ball gowns sewn with quicksilver thread.  
   
And a bracelet, passed down through their family for generations – obsidian, with inlaid jewels so rare that no one seems to know their names.  
   
She pauses the broadcast. Zooms in on the image of the bracelet on the screen. It’s blurry and flickering, but there’s something about the pattern of the gemstones that has her unable to look away. Entrancing.  
   
“Luka.”  
   
She starts, glancing up to find Cain standing in front of her, the box of supplies balanced on his hip. It’s not enough. She knows without even looking inside. The manager of this bar helps them out every few weeks – donates food and a bit of money that they’ve set aside – and it’s not like she’s not grateful. But even that hardly puts a dent in the seemingly impossible task of keeping the kids properly fed day-to-day.  
   
Cain raises an eyebrow. He looks tired, Luka thinks. Weak. Thinner than he was a few months ago. He’s been letting himself go without lately, in favor of helping the younger ones.  
   
“Something interesting?” he says.  
   
She licks her lips. A small rush of exhilaration courses through her as she turns the screen, showing him the staticky image of the gem-laden bracelet.  
   
“Hey, Cain,” she says. “How much d’you think something like this would go for?”  
   
Wariness darkens his eyes as he looks from her to the screen and back again. “Why?”  
   
It’s his very real concern that makes it real to her, too, then. A tangible possibility that she can almost reach out and touch. She nods to herself, and the decisiveness sends a thrill down her spine; she can’t fight the smile that tugs at her mouth.  
   
“Cause I’m gonna steal it,” she says. “I’m gonna rob the king and queen of Famille.”  
   
  
   
  
   
He tries to talk her out of it, of course. All of his arguments are sound and logical: she’s never stolen anything more noteworthy than a 5000 zeum painting from the rowhouse of a minor dignitary. How can she expect to make the sudden step up to a priceless artifact owned by actual literal royalty?  
   
But she’s already made up her mind.  
   
It doesn’t help that it all falls into place in a way that feels like fate. She hears through the back alley rumor mill that Alys has gotten herself a job as security detail for the royal family’s visit. Alys, who technically owes her one. She probably never would’ve made it off the streets without Luka and Cain watching over her baby sister while she was out struggling her way into a legitimate life (not that Luka is keeping a ledger or anything).  
   
She seems to know that Luka isn’t simply there for a friendly visit when she knocks on her apartment window from the fire escape, hesitating and grimacing slightly before unlatching it and letting her in. That grimace only deepens as she listens to her talk.  
   
She gives in in the end, though, after her sister runs into the room to wrap Luka in a hug.  
   
You can never quite shake the street kid code of honor.  
   
Alys gives her one of her spare uniforms – a little too big, but it’ll have to do. Tells her the names of everyone else in the squad, the patrol schedules, the best ways to avoid the boss’s attention, even makes her a scribbled map from memory of the royal family’s quarters.  
   
“I swear to the stars,” she says, a threatening edge to her voice, “if you get caught you better not bring my name up.”  
   
Luka grins, tracing the lines of the map with her fingertip until it stops over the room marked ‘bracelet.’ “Oh, c’mon. As if I’d do either of those.”  
   
  
  
  
   
From there, it’s not difficult to work out the rest. To slip unnoticed onto a transport of night shift guards, none of whom even look at her twice. To privately boggle at the place they’re taken to – a highrise of chrome and silver that almost seems to scrape the low-hanging clouds, the interior all deep burgundy walls and marble floors polished to gleaming. To duck out of the security briefing and make her way through the Famille family’s quarters by way of the memorized map in her mind’s eye.  
   
Until she’s right in front of it. She stands in the open doorway of the room and stares inside at the rows of display cases awaiting their formal submission into the museum. The case containing the bracelet is the most prominent – in the center of all the others, with a light shining down on it that glints off the gemstones. In person there’s something even more enticing about the thing, and she’s taken a step closer before she even registers it. She blinks and shakes herself.  
   
Now of all times would be a poor moment for distraction.  
   
The case apparently only opens at a very specific voice command from one of the Familles. “Only” being a subjective word, she’s always thought. If she can just shut the mechanism off entirely, there has to be a way to open the thing without tripping the alarms. She pulls her miniature toolkit from her back pocket and kneels at the base of the case, prying the panel off to reveal its electronic components.  
   
She’s managed to sort through the wires, frowning down at them and debating which to cut when a voice from behind her says:  
   
“Oh, my.”  
   
She whips around, heartbeat suddenly in her throat, slamming the panel shut and shoving her tools back into her pocket as best as she can. She should have been able to hear someone approaching. Why hadn’t she heard her? The woman in front of her is –  
   
Of course she’d known that there was a princess of Famille. She’d been there on the news broadcast right next to her mother and father, waving serenely to the crowds. But her face had been a blur on the old, damaged screen. She hadn’t really existed in Luka’s mind until right this very moment, as she stands there smiling placidly in a pink silken floor-length nightgown and a shawl woven from iridescent fabric, her dark hair falling over her shoulders.  
   
“Are you attempting to steal that, by any chance?” she asks, not seeming remotely troubled by the prospect.  
   
Luka forces a laugh, her body tensed like a wire pulled taut. “That’s. Very funny, Your Highness. I just… wanted to look at it, is all. I apologize for forgetting my place.”  
   
“No, that’s quite alright. It is very beautiful, after all.” She tilts her head to the side as she studies Luka, a knowing look in her eyes. “I do not believe I’ve seen you among the guards before. Are you new to the job?”  
   
“Ah, yeah,” Luka says, plastering on a smile in return. “Today’s my first day, actually.”  
   
“Oh, how wonderful! Please do your best, Miss…?”  
   
“…Luka.” She sees no reason to lie about that, at least.  
   
“Miss Luka. I am Ahim de Famille.” She takes a moment to curtsy, even, to which Luka has no idea how to react. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”  
   
“Likewise,” she manages, and then she freezes.  
   
She can hear two of the actual guards making their way down the hall towards the display room, their footsteps echoing off the marble. It takes all of her willpower not to curse out loud. So she’s lost her window of opportunity, then. All because of this woman.  
   
“I… have to go on my rounds,” she mutters, ducking her head and tugging her cap down low as she skirts around the princess.  
   
“Perhaps I will see you again tomorrow,” the princess says, sounding oddly hopeful in a way that gives her pause.  
   
“…Yeah,” Luka says over her shoulder. “Maybe.”  
   
  
   
  
   
What other option is there? She has to go back. To try again. She’s too committed to this to even consider otherwise.  
   
Somehow, her plan works without setback the second day as well. Boards the transport (late morning, this time), marvels at the opulence of the sector they’re flown to, more glaring now in the daylight. Slips unseen from the briefing to make her way purposefully towards the room with the bracelet.  
   
She turns the corner.  
   
“Ah, Miss Luka!”  
   
The princess beams at her, and Luka barely bites back an ‘oh,  _come on_.’ Is this purposeful? Is this woman doing this just to mess with her? She’s too cute to hate, is the worst part of it. She’s in full royal regalia today – a dress that looks like something from an old movie, full skirts hemmed with lace, her hair pinned up with barrettes decorated with pink pearls.  
   
“Are you shirking duties to study the bracelet again?” the princess asks, giving her a conspiratorial look. “It’s alright. I won’t tell your commanding officer. Though you know, if jewelry is an interest of yours, I have other pieces I should show you.”  
   
Luka blinks. “Wha – really?” Immediately, the cogs in her mind are turning. Could she switch targets? Pocket something else while the princess isn’t looking? It wouldn’t be quite the same caliber of treasure, she’s sure, but it would be something to show for her troubles.  
   
“Of course! My grandmother passed down a signet ring to me that I think is just so lovely, though the size isn’t quite right for me to wear.” She holds out her arm, bent at the elbow, like she’s expecting Luka to link hers through. She’s still smiling away. “I’ll escort you.”  
   
“I… Okay,” Luka says, dumbfounded. She takes the princess’s arm hesitantly and is tugged forward a moment later with a remarkable amount of force for such a soft-looking person. Luka almost stumbles; she has to watch her feet to make sure she doesn’t tread on the voluminous skirts of the princess’s dress.  
   
“Do you… always dress like this, Your Highness?”  
   
“Hm? Oh, yes, generally.”  
   
“Just wondering, but is your planet some kind of fairy tale place?” The question comes out a bit more wry and contemptuous than she’d intended.  
   
The princess simply laughs. “Well, we never quite had the technological revolution that many other places did. We still live rather simply, which might seem like fairy tales, I suppose. This planet is the one that seems fantastical to me.” A beat. “Though I have not seen very much of it yet. My mother and father are… hesitant to allow me anywhere that is not a well-known tourist spot. Is this planet like this all over?”  
   
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Luka says dryly. “Never been out of the city, myself.”  
   
“Really? Why not?”  
   
Luka laughs, sharp and harsh with disbelief. “Because I don’t have any money, Princess. I barely have enough for food, let alone trips to the countryside.”  
   
The princess stops, then, pausing in the middle of the hall, arm falling away from Luka’s. She seems to consider this before her expression hardens. “I see,” she murmurs. “I apologize, Miss Luka. I am a bit ignorant at times, I can’t deny. There is much I do not know about how other people live.” When she smiles this time there is a hint of remorse to it. “It seems we are both trapped by our circumstances, then. Though it would not be fair to compare them.”  
   
None of her past experiences with rich folk could have ever prepared her for being apologized to. Luka opens her mouth and closes it again as she stares at her, an odd feeling twisting in her chest, until finally she clears her throat and says: “Not that I’ve… met a whole lot of others, but… As far as royalty goes, you’re kind of weird, aren’t you?”  
   
The princess’s dark eyes widen. “Am I?”  
   
It’s like she’s  _trying_  to be as adorable as possible. Luka shakes her head with a huff of startled laughter. “Forget it,” she mutters. “Let’s just go see this ring you’re so fond of.”  
   
  
   
It is lovely, just as she said. The crest of the Famille family – a bird-like creature holding a blooming flower in its beak – is etched into the gold with delicate, practiced precision. Luka looks just past it, though, to the jewelry box of neatly arranged rings and pins, earrings and broaches that the princess has left open on the sitting room table.  
   
It would be so easy. She’s not even looking at the moment – she’s standing with her back to Luka, pouring tea for two that she had the maid fetch for them, humming quietly to herself.  
   
Luka’s fingers twitch.  
   
This woman has everything, and Luka? Luka has hungry kids waiting for her. It’s simple, isn’t it?  
   
And yet. She can’t seem to do it. What if that one there is also a gift from her grandmother? Does it have some special meaning? Would she be sad if it were gone? Luka falters, frozen there as the seconds tick past, until the princess turns back to her with the tea tray and she lets her wrist fall, yet another chance slipping through her fingers.  
   
“I hope you like moonmint tea,” the princess says brightly, placing the tray down in front of her. “It’s rather a favorite of mine.”  
   
Luka sets the ring down in order to take the porcelain cup of tea in hand, staring down into the pale blue-ish liquid. “Never had it before,” she says quietly. A sip reveals it to have a crisp, refreshing flavor undercut with a slight sweetness she can’t name. Like drinking moonlight.  
   
“Do you… do this with all the guards?” she asks, arching an eyebrow. “Sit down for tea?”  
   
“Well I’d like to,” the princess says, pouting a bit over the rim of her teacup. “I have attempted to extend an invitation to a few others, but I believe they have been instructed not to associate in an overly friendly manner with me.”  
   
Luka snorts into her tea. “Not surprising. After the Consul of Kieron tried to have a bunch of cleaning staff beheaded for ‘looking at him funny’ everyone’s been kinda jumpy around visiting royalty.”  
   
The princess looks aghast. “Beheaded!?”  
   
“Apparently it’s the usual punishment for peasants getting full of themselves over on Kieron. Ever before they started rubbing shoulders with the Zangyack.” She taps a nail against her cup thoughtfully. “Guess I should be grateful I don’t live there, at least.”  
   
The princess’s shoulders sink, as if suddenly burdened with a great weight. She sets her tea down slowly into its saucer. Her expression is almost shellshocked. “I cannot believe… that some rulers would be so cruel.”  
   
“Yeah, well. That’s life,” Luka mutters. “There’s a lot of powerful people in this universe without any morals, sorry to say.”  
   
The princess seems to bounce back from her distress quickly, her posture stiffening, a fire flaring to life in her eyes. “How shameful,” she says sharply, heat behind her words. “The people are the lifeblood of a kingdom. Their wellbeing and happiness is paramount. Any monarch who fails to realize this does not deserve their crown.”  
   
Luka sips at her tea with a contemplative hum in the back of her throat. “So everything’s great over on Famille, then?”  
   
“Yes,” the princess says, with a fierce conviction.  
   
“You sure? You said it yourself, right? That there’s ‘much you don’t know about the lives of others.’”  
   
The resolute set to the princess’s face falters.  
   
“People who have it good tend to only see what they want to see.” Luka shrugs a shoulder. “That’s just how it goes.”  
   
In the silence that follows, she drains the last of her tea and gets to her feet.  
   
“Thanks for all this, Your Highness, but. I should probably… get to work.”  
   
She feels odd as she walks away. Too aware of her own presence in the room. The strangeness of these events has been lagging just behind her, but now it is beginning to catch up, getting its hooks into her all at once. She came here to steal from royalty, but instead she just sat down to tea with one of them. She can’t imagine trying to explain this to Cain. Why she’s empty-handed, even after everything –  
   
Fingers close around her wrist.  
   
She turns back, startled, to find the princess standing there with her brow furrowed, her mouth curved into a frown. Her palm, her fingertips are unbelievably soft where they’re pressed against Luka’s skin, but her grip is far more firm and unshakable than one would ever expect.  
   
“I… do not know what to do,” she says softly. “So I will simply follow my whims, for now.”  
   
She presses something into Luka’s hand. Earrings. The metal is a burnished bronze, the gems a pale, opalescent purple.  
   
“I am unsure of how much these are worth, in this planet’s currency,” the princess says. “But I imagine it would be enough. To pay for the necessities for a while.”  
   
Luka stares at her, open-mouthed. “You – ” she starts to say, but the princess simply smiles, small and a bit sad.  
   
“I hope things turn around for you, Miss Luka. I apologize for detaining you so long.”  
   
She inclines her head and brushes past without another word, leaving Luka standing there in silence, listening to herself breathe, the jewels in her palm glinting up at her in the light.  
   
  
   
  
   
Her usual dealer’s eyes go wide when she slides the earrings to them across the counter. A tell like that is rare to see in practiced black market business types, and so when they quote her a price she shakes her head, grinning, and says, “C’mon. We can do a bit better than that, can’t we?”  
   
In the end, she walks away with 22,000 zeum hidden in her coat pocket and a lightness in her step that she hasn’t felt in a long while. It’s more money than she can ever remember having. It won’t last forever, but maybe, for a time, she won’t have to worry. About the kids. About Cain.  
   
“I guess I would’ve heard if you’d managed the bracelet,” he says, raising an eyebrow at her after she drags him into an alley to reveal her windfall, but he’s unable to keep the ecstatic smile off his face. “Snagged something else from under the king and queen’s noses, then?”  
   
“Something like that,” Luka says with a wink.  
   
She finds herself sobering, though, as the day progresses on. Gone quiet and thoughtful as she sits by the fire pit in the old lot and watches everyone having a good meal for the first time in days, their laughing faces illuminated in the glow.  
   
The image of the princess’s sad smile just won’t leave her mind. She keeps replaying it back, remembering a new detail with each repetition – the way she’d squeezed Luka’s hand so lightly before pulling back. The way a strand of hair had fallen loose from her pins after running to catch up.  
   
“I heard the story from Cain,” Nils says, pulling up a crate next to her, dragging her from her thoughts with a start. He leans in closer. “You’re not planning to go back again, are you?”  
   
Luka contemplates this.  
   
“Nah,” she says, a strange kind of heaviness settling in the pit of her stomach, staring into the heart of the fire. “I guess I’m done.”  
   
  
   
  
   
So she wonders how, three days later, she winds up in her borrowed uniform again, taking that same transport to the swanky side of town. It had just felt necessary, she supposes. She’d woken up with this as her goal and no real reason in her mind as to why.  
   
Clearly this will have to be the end of it, though, if the guy eyeing her suspiciously from across the row is any indication. Finally some of them are starting to realize that they don’t recognize her from basic training. She has to work harder this time to avoid attention as she slips away from the group, making her way to the display room not so much in pursuit of any treasure as with the feeling that once again _she_ will be there –  
   
The princess – Ahim is watering the flowers by the windowsill. She glances up when she hears Luka’s footsteps, and blinks at her, lips parted in surprise, the water she was pouring beginning to overflow the poor flower’s pot.  
   
“Your Highness,” Luka says. “You want to get out of here for a bit?”  
   
  
   
They take a quick detour, first, Luka picking the lock of one of the maid’s rooms and procuring some items from her closet: a long skirt and simple blouse and plain, sturdy shoes, the small bundle of which she now tosses at Ahim.  
   
“You’re gonna need to look a lot less fancy if you want to walk around unnoticed.”  
   
Ahim nods very seriously. “That makes sense,” she murmurs. “Could you assist me with my dress, Miss Luka?”  
   
She turns away, lifting the curtain of her hair to reveal the row of delicate buttons along the back of the bodice.  
   
“Right,” Luka says softly, reaching out a hand. “Sure.”  
   
(She looks for maybe just a moment too long at the bare slope of her shoulders before averting her eyes. She supposes it doesn’t matter how much she sees. But this woman is a princess, after all. She’s undoubtedly used to a certain level of courtesy.  
   
That’s all it is.)  
   
“You seemed way too surprised to see me,” she says airily, as she waits for Ahim to finish changing. “I do work here, y’know.” She pauses, adds: “Supposedly.”  
   
Ahim laughs. “I gave myself away, didn’t I? I… was certain from the start, actually. That you were a thief. I thought it was rather exciting and glamorous.” She falls silent for a time. “That was just me being naïve, I suppose. All I’ve ever known of thieves has been from romantic novels. They rarely have much reason for it there – stealing, I mean. They simply do so because it is elegant and roguish.  
   
“Not that meeting you has been  _un_ exciting, Miss Luka.” A hand taps her on the shoulder, and Luka turns to find her beaming in her borrowed outfit. She twirls in place and lets the skirt fan out around her, and Luka wonders if even such normal clothes can truly conceal this woman’s… princess aura.  
   
“Well?” Ahim says brightly. “Shall we go?”  
   
  
   
  
   
Rich people’s tendency to build secret private elevators and entrances into buildings to avoid mingling with the commoners does have its benefits, in the end. Makes it far easier to escape a highrise with a princess in tow, at least. From there it’s a simple enough matter of keeping their faces hidden, sticking to back alleys until they’re far enough into the grimier parts of the city that it no longer matters.  
   
Ahim seems utterly taken with everything here in the poorer sectors. She keeps stopping in front of the makeshift shop stalls set up along this street, the tables covered in things scavenged and things obtained through questionable means – cheap-looking stuffed animals, bits of wire and electronic ephemera, bootleg holo-dramas in flimsy cases. When she tries to sit down in front of one of the countless sham fortune tellers Luka has to grab her by the arm and steer her away.  
   
“It is so lively here,” Ahim says, bowing her head in greeting to a group of thugs who are clearly here in this part of town for some kind of shady deal.  
   
“That’s a word for it,” Luka mutters. “C’mon. Once we get to my usual haunting grounds,  _then_  we can relax.”  
   
She leads her through shortcuts – abandoned buildings transformed by street kids over the years, hanging bridges built between empty windows. Points out graffiti murals and tells her who painted them.  
   
“Once you see her,” she says, gesturing to a huge, sprawling image of a woman’s face looming over them, planets in place of pupils and hair made of space and stars, “that’s when you know you’re in familiar territory.”  
   
“Beautiful,” Ahim murmurs, and Luka can feel her lips twitch into a pleased smile.  
   
It’s two blocks further to her favorite hole in the wall restaurant, a ramshackle place owned by a lady known only as ‘Ms. B.’  
   
“You hungry?” she asks, and Ahim nods enthusiastically, ducking under the hanging curtain that serves in place of a door. Ms. B – short and stout, with a green-ish tinge to her skin and small protruding forehead horns that speak of alien ancestry – looks up at them and smiles broadly from across the counter.  
   
“Haven’t seen you in a few weeks, Luka. You been busy? I don’t even know this lovely girl on your arm.”  
   
Luka grins back at her. “She’s the Princess of Famille, y’know.”  
   
Ms. B barks out a laugh. “Right! And I’m the Sultan of O’brahos!” She waves a hand. “Take a seat, I’ll bring two of your usual.”  
   
“You don’t really order here so much as just… accept whatever she gives you,” Luka explains, as they both pull up a chair at one of the three tables in this place, the only one that has a working, non-flickering light overhead. “Sorry if you wanted to decide.”  
   
“Oh, no. I think it’s rather fun.” Ahim’s perfect posture and hands neatly folded in her lap are so glaringly out of place here that Luka almost laughs. Her prim and proper enthusiasm falters only a little when the food is brought to them and she gets a look at it: a dish called li manje, noodles and scraps of vegetables in an admittedly off-putting dark brown broth. (She brightens again once she’s tasted it.)  
   
The old-fashioned music filtering in from the radio behind the counter is warbling and thin. The noise of the streets outside all but drowns it out.  
   
“Miss Luka,” Ahim says, setting down her spoon with a pensive expression. “Do you have… a dream, by any chance? A goal you wish to accomplish?”  
   
Luka blinks at her. “I… guess so, yeah.”  
   
“Would you tell me?”  
   
She looks so intent, so unwavering in this moment that Luka can’t help but want to answer.  
   
“I mean. It’s not exactly an achievable one, but. Me and Cain are always talking about it. Saying that someday we’ll have enough money to buy a whole planet, just for people like us. So no more kids have to grow up on the streets.” Her smile feels wry. “It’s not like there’s any chance of it ever happening. But I keep believing in it anyway.”  
   
“That’s brilliant,” Ahim says, with a fierceness behind the words. “Someone like you… I know you could accomplish it.”  
   
Taken aback, Luka sets her own spoon down with a clink. “That’s… Thanks.” She swallows hard. “What about you? A dream, I mean. You could make all kinds of things happen, with your influence.”  
   
A shadow flickers across Ahim’s face. She presses her lips together in a thin line. “I… don’t know,” she admits finally. “The scope of my life has always seemed very small to me, despite my role. I have rarely wanted for anything, and maybe, because of that… I have never truly wanted anything, either.”  
   
“Well. Never too late to start,” Luka says, muffled around a bite of noodles, and Ahim’s smile returns gradually to her face, her cheeks dimpling.  
   
“No,” she says, soft and tentative. “I suppose it is not.”  
   
  
   
  
   
The twin suns are setting by the time they leave Ms. B’s, the faded light cut through with the shapes of the buildings that tower in the distance. The telewatch of a passerby is playing the news, and they both stop to listen in as the anchor very somberly begins to report on a new story: the missing princess of Famille, who vanished without a trace from her suite hours earlier. No ransom note from the kidnapper has been found, but one is expected to arrive any time now.  
   
“Oh dear,” Ahim murmurs. She presses a hand to her cheek and looks very much like she’s trying to stifle a laugh. “Mother and Father must be quite distraught.”  
   
“Can’t believe I forgot the ransom note,” Luka says with a grin. “Rookie mistake.” She pauses. “Still. Guess they might send out the hunter squad if I keep you much longer.”  
   
Ahim’s face falls in a way that sends an odd pang through her chest.  
   
“Though,” she adds quickly. “There is one more thing I could show you. It’s about the right time for it. If you’re interested.”  
   
There’s a bridge not too far south that they call the Maiden’s Bridge, for reasons long forgotten by everyone who lives here. It overlooks a busy stretch of the canal, traffic from the sea constantly sailing in and out – everything from personal hoverboats to massive freighters laden with gleaming white yosphite from the mines leagues away. Because of its prime location, the canal has become the ideal place to advertise, though in a strange stroke of fortune the aesthetic precedent has not been forgotten over the years.  
   
She explains some of this to Ahim as they walk. Enough to sate her obvious curiosity, as they take their places by the railing on the Maiden’s Bridge, the ships flowing steadily beneath, the suns sinking lower and lower in the distance until they are gone and twilight darkness falls over the city.  
   
And then. The first flickerings of neon.  
   
The signs unfold from the sides of the old buildings and pop out of inset holo-projectors, first just a speckling, but then a sudden wave-like surge until there is a wall of blinking, glowing light in every imaginable shade to mark the sides of the canal, stretching on past the bend, turning the water below into a muted mirror image. Luka looks over to find Ahim staring in astonishment, her face cast in vivid yellow from the nearest sign.  
   
“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” she whispers. “The city is full of lovely things.”  
   
“…Yeah. It is.” She’s grown so used to resenting this city, for keeping her trapped. For never providing enough. But she realizes with a jolt that she’ll miss it, too, someday when she leaves it behind. There’s good things even amid all the hardship.  
   
“I would love to show you Famille’s capital in return,” Ahim says. She reaches out to touch Luka’s wrist seemingly without thinking, turning her so that they are face-to-face, her excited smile perfectly visible in the glow. “There is a temple with a sacred tree growing right into the foundation. And the fountain in the square with the statues of our most famous heroes…!”  
   
She trails off, her smile slipping. “But I suppose… You will most likely never come there, will you?”  
   
Luka’s chest feels tight. She forces a laugh. “I mean. Even if I did, what? They’re just gonna let some suspicious street rat into the palace to see the princess?”  
   
“They would!” Ahim insists. “I would – I would have it be known. That you are my – ”  
   
Her words are cut off by the swooping drone of police cruisers overhead. They both stop and stare up at their dark outlines against the sky, at the search spotlights beaming down, and Luka can feel Ahim’s fingers tighten around her wrist.  
   
“Wow,” she says, with a casual bravado that sounds forced even to her own ears. “That’s probably for you, princess. Only a few hours and they’ve already sent out the rescue team, huh? You should go to meet them. Give your parents a rest.”  
   
She glances back to find Ahim looking at her steadily, an emotion in her eyes that Luka isn’t ready to put a name to.  
   
“Miss Luka,” she begins, and then shakes her head, as if brushing the thought away, and steps forward to press their lips together.  
   
It’s fleeting, Luka barely having time to react before it is gone, the imprint of warmth lingering as Ahim pulls back to smile at her wistfully. She can only stand there, rooted to the spot as Ahim tugs the silver chain around her neck up over her head, revealing what is attached to it: the gold signet ring of the Famille family. The chain pools like water, both it and the ring still warm from Ahim’s skin as she places them in Luka’s hand and curls her fingers over them.  
   
“For you,” she says. “For your dream. I imagine you can get much more for this than those other jewels I gave you.”  
   
Luka recovers just enough to be able to protest. “ _What?_  No! This is – it’s special, isn’t it?”  
   
Ahim laughs. “Maybe a little. But in the end, it’s just a pretty thing to me. And I have so many of those. For you, it could be something much more.” She squeezes her hand one last time before letting go. “Goodbye, Miss Luka. Perhaps… even if not on Famille, we will see each other again, someday.”  
   
And at that she turns to walk away.  
   
Luka stares after her until she’s swallowed up by the city’s darkness. The sounds of the police cruisers, the ships, the water of the canal – it all seems muted, as if it were echoing from a great distance.  
   
“Idiot,” she says, her voice thick and heavy in her throat. “What’re the chances of that?”  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
She’s wearing the ring (a perfect fit) on the day a woman with dark hair emerges from the dust on a faraway planet, holding her own wanted poster and asking to join their crew.


End file.
